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Law case gets Tweedledumber by the day

It’s not often that hallucinogenic literature gets cited in an MEP’s question. But Conservative Charles Tannock recently tabled one about a case which, he says, has “taken on an almost Alice in Wonderland quality”.

European Voice

4/24/02, 5:00 PM CET

Updated 4/12/14, 7:53 AM CET

Though Entre Nous can’t see all the parallels with Lewis Carroll’s meisterwerk, the case does bear some similarities to the battle between Tweedlee and Tweedledum. Basically, Tannock is concerned about his constituent, the modestly-named Prince Carol Mircea Grigore De Hohenzollern-De Romania who’s “been involved in an extraordinary protracted dispute with his younger half-brother, ex-King Michael in the Romanian Courts over the former’s legitimacy”. By rights, the case should have been settled in 1999, when the Romanian Court of Appeal recognised that Carol Mircea is the legitimate first-born son from the legal marriage of Crown Prince Carol of Romania and Princess Iona Valentina Lambrino.

Despite that, the ex-King has dithered on respecting his 82-year-old semi-sibling’s entitlements, using delaying tactics. Tannock has now asked the Commission to take up the cudgels on behalf of his embattled constituent.

Alas, enlargement chief Günter Verheugen has told him he doesn’t have the “competence” to intervene in struggles involving erstwhile royal families of candidate countries.